Ep 008 – The Best Way To Refinance Student Loans

Summary: Refinancing: A Hot Button Issue [0:03:08] Early Financial Services Firms [0:05:28] Being Comfortable In Your Refinancing Decisions [0:08:35] Current Refinance Rates: Fixed Versus Variable [0:15:14] How To Refinance Student Loans [0:17:25] Getting A Loan Will Not Cost You Anything [0:24:29] Different Tiers of Saving (Buckets) the Ramit Sethi Way [0:28:44] What Are Stable Coins? [0:30:25] Final Thoughts on Refinancing [0:36:53]     Welcome to the Financial MD Show. This is the only podcast designed specifically for residents and young physicians to help you become educated on financial planning for physicians and avoid many of the common financial mistakes doctors make. Your hosts, Jon and Trevor, explore a different topic with each episode. Jon Solitro is a financial planner and certified financial education instructor. He’s been working with young physicians for the better part of the decade and lectures to graduate medical programs around the country. Dr. Trevor Smith is a board certified ophthalmologist with a full time practice and he has learned the ins and outs first-hand what it takes to make smart financial decisions as a young physician. And now, here’s your hosts, Jon and Trevor.     Jon: You know, you’d think it doesn’t need to be long but probably like most of our topics, it will get longer than we think it will but I think we’ll be done by 9.   Trevor: All right, that sounds good.   Refinancing: A Hot Button Issue [0:03:08]   Jon: I’ll just try to keep track of the time but you know how it goes. We’ll just shoot to share about refinancing and see what type of rabbit trail that takes us and I think we’ll come out with some valuable info especially because this definitely is the hot button issue for residents, young attendings, as they’re getting to the point where they’re realizing they’re going to have to start paying the government 6.8 percent on a full payment and it’s such a good time to refinance. I think we’ll have plenty to cover. I have this conversation all the time – multiple times a week – with clients as they’re telling me, “How do I refinance? Should I refinance?” I mean they’re talking about it in questions and lectures or we’re talking about it with individual planning conversations, but as with many of our topics, Trevor, you can add some wisdom and experiences and I can certainly add experiences from this end seeing many, many residents go through the process and what I think are kind of the quick bullet points. This is one of the topics where we’re going to have some actionable take-home giveaway things so if you’re listening to this episode –which, if you heard that sentence, then I guess you’re listening to this episode – there will be a giveaway. We’ve created a refinancing recipe which is kind of just a brochure – a quick 2-page how-to – on how to refinance your student loans, because it’s not complicated, and so we break it down to something that you can really follow step by step and make sure you’re doing the proper steps and not forgetting any ingredients and you come out with a really nice recipe at the end. We’ll talk about that at the end, but I love how this has become a hot topic in the last 5 years because you and I were talking about Link Capital back in the day, right? Was that the first company that you looked at?   Early Financial Services Firms [0:05:28]   Trevor: Yeah. I’m trying to remember how I came across them actually. I was looking at the traditional as I think we had talked about this not too long ago, but I looked at the limited number. There were three main ones that I learned about on White Coat Investor and it was like Common Bond – how do you say this one, Darien Rowayton Bank.   Jon: Yeah, DRB.   Trevor: DRB. I think SoFi was just coming on in the scene and there was one other one – I think Common Bond, maybe.   Jon: I always get the impression SoFi was kind of...